| Pg.4 & 5 are indeed missing, BUT I do have B & W reprint of the whole story from a book collecting FRISKY FABLES. In the complete story, Spunky is tied up and left in a cave by the kidnappers. Fearing that once they find out he's NOT the prince, they'd come back and KILL him, Spunky uses his tail to untie the ropes. (sort of like an X-Man, but hardly worth prof.X's attention). He then ,not having learned his lesson, goes about pretending to be the prince again. He winds up in a sideshow, and runs lest he's recognized by somebody he sees.
Spunky sometimes breaks the law... |
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| In answer to Peter Gilis' question. When Curtis Publishing shut down their Novelty Press comic book production arm in 1949, they sold the publishing rights back stock and artwork/printing plates to their chief Editor and top artist, L.B. Cole, and his new partner, Jerry Kramer, who continued the operations as Star Publications. In early 1954, Cole and Kramer shut down Star Comics, and sold some of their stock and artwork to Robert Farrell, who was Victor Fox's junior partner and Chief Editor of Fox Features, and ran his own Farrell/Four Star Publishing. Farrell reprinted much of Star's former Funny Animal production in new series in 1957 and 1958, and also mixed it with Farrell's old Hi-Ho stories, along with some newly commissioned production on new front covers and a few new title characters stories like Spunky Spook, Super Cat(a slightly altered version of Fox's "Cosmo Cat" ). Farrell, who ran Fox Features while Victor Fox was in prison, had leased Cosmo Cat and other Fox properties to Cole's Star Publications, during the early 1950s, and may have loaned Star money to help them get started. That is likely why those Fox properties reverted to Farrell when Star folded, and the Novelty/Star properties were sold to him at the same time. I doubt that Farrell was scared out of printing whole comic books of a "Casper The Friendly Ghost" lookalike, as Spunky #s 3 and 4 had 2 newly-created stories inside each issue. I think Farrell just wanted to get his new funny animal titles selling, as soon as possible, and the new stories with the new characters weren't finished ready to print until issue # 3. The same was true of his newly-commissioned "Super Cat" stories. Issues 3s 1 & 2 only had Super Cat on the front covers, with only reprint Fox and Novelty/Star stories, but issues #s 3 & 4 contained new Super Cat stories. ALL of the ghost stories, which also included a couple name changes from "Mighty Ghost", "Super Spook" and "Spunky (Spook)", and "Super Cat", and "Mighty Bear"(reprints of Novelty "Neddy Bear" stories, and "Frisky Animals on Parade" reprints of Star's "Frisky Animals" ran only 3 or 4 issues, probably due to lack of sales, rather than threats of copyright infringement in the case of the Casper clones. |
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